


Aww, Zucchini

by follow_the_sun



Category: Hawkeye (Comics), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Bad Decisions, F/M, Gardens & Gardening, how does zucchini not have a tag, zucchini - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-07
Updated: 2017-07-07
Packaged: 2018-11-28 20:46:29
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 541
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11425887
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/follow_the_sun/pseuds/follow_the_sun
Summary: Clint Barton is new to this whole farming gig and, look, nobodytoldhim about zucchini.





	Aww, Zucchini

Most people wouldn’t understand why it's necessary to dispose of the zucchini in a way that ensures it will be used _—_ or at least, ensures that if it isn’t used, it won’t be  _your_ fault. Clint Barton, however, grew up poor, and usually hungry, even in the best of the string of foster homes he inhabited, and the cardinal rule was,  _don’t waste food._

Nobody had ever told him that there’s another cardinal rule specific to farming, which is,  _don’t plant so goddamned much zucchini._  

 _Captain America would understand,_ he told himself, when he cooked up this plan.  _Hell, Steve was a Depression baby. Steve would_ endorse  _this. Steve would tell me I’m_ morally obligated  _to take justice into my own hands._

The theoretical Steve who lives in his head might have endorsed it a little less heartily if Clint had mentioned the part about picking the locks on his neighbors’ back doors to leave piles of zucchini on their kitchen tables, but them’s the breaks when you’re an ex-carnie with a questionable skillset, and a simple B&E feels like a small price to pay for getting rid of all these goddamned green things. 

(You know, in a way that doesn’t involve eating them.)

(Let's not get crazy here.)

The theoretical Steve who lives in his head certainly wouldn’t endorse a plan that ends with him freezing in a stranger’s kitchen, instinctively putting his hands up when he sees the shotgun pointed at his head, and dropping exactly twenty-six zucchini (zucchinis?) all over said stranger’s kitchen floor.

It turns out he doesn’t need to worry. After several seconds of outright disbelief, Clint’s neighbor from four doors down the road _—_ Laura, he thinks her name is _—_ lowers the gun and shakes her head. “I know you, don’t I?” she says. “You’re Clint, the one who just moved into the old Barton place.”

“My grandfather’s, yeah,” Clint says, slowly lowering his hands. “Just inherited it.” The old bastard couldn’t take him in when he was a homeless kid, but he could, apparently, regret that enough in his old age to leave Clint some acreage and an ancient, creaky farmhouse in his will. It might not have been such a disaster if he’d only had the foresight to add some grandfatherly advice, like, oh, Clint doesn’t know, maybe  _ **don’t plant so much fucking zucchini.**  _“Are you gonna call the cops?” 

“Give me a reason I shouldn’t.”

“Uh. I’m an Avenger?”

Laura laughs. “Give me a  _good_ reason I shouldn’t.”

Clint sighs. He knows when he’s beaten. “I’ll make you a deal,” he says.

Which is how Clint Barton winds up slinking home, chastened, at two o’clock in the morning, now juggling, in addition to his lockpicks, flashlight, and balaclava, numerous totebags containing no less than  _fifty-seven zucchini._

This is definitely Steve’s fault, somehow or other.

Well, he  _was_ going to spend this weekend setting up some hay bales to practice target shooting in the field behind the house, but now he guesses he’s going to have to spend it trying to come up with ways to convince his new hard-bargaining, shotgun-toting, surprisingly attractive neighbor that he's not such a bad guy after all.

And scouring YouTube for videos about how to make pickles.

**Author's Note:**

> There's a Tumblr post going around about people finding creative ways to get rid of extra produce from their gardens. Half the responses are people going, "Why is this a thing?" and the other half are going, "DAMMIT ZUCCHINI." Anyway, someone said, "This should be a fanfic AU," and here we are.


End file.
